Oil Spill

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT OIL SPILL - PAGE 3

LONDON: Former BP PLC chief Tony Hayward says the company was unprepared for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the media scrutiny, forcing it to improvise solutions. In an interview with the BBC to be broadcast on Tuesday, Hayward says the contingency plans were inadequate and "we were making it up day to day. " An April 20 explosion aboard a Gulf oil rig killed 11 workers and kicked off the worst oil spill in US history. Hayward said BP was "not prepared to deal with the intensity of the media scrutiny.

MUMBAI: The captain of merchant vessel MSC Chitra, which collided with another cargo ship resulting in the oil spill off the city's coast, has approached a local court seeking anticipatory bail. The city police had registered a case against the captain and crew members of both the vessels under several sections of the IPC and the Environment Act. In his bail plea, the captain of MSC Chitra has stated that the collision was an accident and his custodial interrogation is not required.

MIAMI: US weather authorities extended storm warnings in the Caribbean on Thursday to Florida's coast on the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to force BP to suspend oil spill operations. "A tropical storm warning has been issued for the Florida east coast... and along the west coast of Florida," the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. High winds and choppy seas could force the evacuation of hundreds of ships working to clean up oil spilling from a deep-sea gusher, and halt operations to drill relief wells to plug the disastrous leak.

MUMBAI: In wake of the collision between two ships and the subsequent oil spill off the coast here, BMC has started conducting random checks of seafood items in civic markets to ensure they are hygienic and contamination-free. "As the oil spill spread fast and thick off Mumbai coast, we have taken samples of sea food items like Bombil (Bombay Duck) and Prawns. These samples have been sent to labs for testing and reports will come within four days to confirm whether they are hygienic or not," BMC Assistant Municipal Commissioner (Markets)

MUMBAI: Six coastguard vessels and a helicopter with anti-pollution dispersal spray systems were pressed into service today to contain an oil spill caused due to a collision between two cargo ships off the Mumbai coast. "Anti pollution operations are underway. Six ships and one helicopter with anti pollution disposal spray systems are on the job to contain the oil spill," a coast guard official said. "We are yet to locate the leakage as some portion of the outbound merchant vessel Chitra, which damaged in the collision, submerged after the mishap," he said.

KOLKATA: India has not been affected by a massive oil spill in the waters of Sundarbans delta on the Bangladesh side, forest department officials said. "Our staff has been patrolling the bordering region for the last 3-4 days. No such effect has been seen so far on the Indian side," Sundarbans Tiger Reserve's field director Soumitra Dasgupta told PTI. Last week, a tanker and another vessel collided on the Bangladesh side of the Sundarbans delta resulting in the spilling of more than 3,50,000 litres of furnace oil into the waters.

MUMBAI: Two Panamanian cargo ships collided today off the Mumbai coast causing an oil spill from one of the vessels but no casualties were reported, Indian Coast Guard (ICG)officials said. 33 crew members, including two Pakistanis, were rescued following the incident, they said. According to Coast Guard officials, MSC Chitra, the outbound merchant vessel from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust ( JNPT ), collided with MV Khalijia-III, five nautical miles from the shores at 9:50 am when the latter was sailing towards Mumbai Port Trust (MPT)

WASHINGTON: The White House is asking Congress to approve $10 million for potential litigation costs arising from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico . It's part of a larger legislative package the administration sent to Congress this week including help for fishermen and a proposal to raise limits on how much BP might have to pay for economic damages from the spill. A letter from the Office of Management and Budget to congressional leaders says the $10 million would help the Justice Department pay unspecified litigation costs the administration might not be able to recover from BP or from an emergency cleanup fund.

WASHINGTON: The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is probably "the biggest environmental disaster" that the United States has ever experienced, senior White House official Carol Browner said on Sunday. Browner, a White House advisor on energy and climate change, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the leak was "probably the biggest environmental disaster we've ever faced in this country. " Estimates now suggest that between 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of crude are gushing into the Gulf each day from a well pipe damaged when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and then sank two days later on April 22. That means "more oil is leaking in the Gulf of Mexico than at any other time in our history.

WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department is still investigating the causes of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to determine whether to bring criminal charges, US attorney general Eric Holder said on Sunday. "The investigation is ongoing. We are in the process of accumulating documents, talking to witnesses on both the criminal side and the civil side," he told CBS "Face the Nation. " But he said there was no timetable yet on whether any charges would be brought against British energy giant BP which leased the Deepwater Horizon rig from Transocean . The drilling platform exploded in April unleashing the nation's worst ever environmental disaster, with thousands of barrels of crude gushing into the seas every day.